We are broke because Obasanjo, Jonathan didn’t save during time of abundance – Lai Mohammed

Information and Culture minister Lai Mohammed who represented Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari at the12th All Nigeria Editors’ Conference (ANEC) 2016 in Port Harcourt on Thursday 4 August 2016 cited that Nigeria’s current economic woes were compounded by lack of foresight characterized by past regimes.

His words:

“Nigeria has nothing to rely on to cushion the effects of the lost earnings. Many other oil producing countries and fellow Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members are faring better, because they saved for the rainy day. Saudi Arabia, with about one fifth of Nigeria’s population, has in foreign reserves about $600 billion, which is 23 times what Nigeria has in foreign reserves.

“United Arab Emirates, with less than 10 million people, has $75 billion in foreign reserves. Qatar, with 2.4 million people, has $36 billion in foreign reserves. Even Angola, with just 24 million people, has about $25 billion dollars in foreign reserves.

“Here in Nigeria, with oil selling consistently for over $100 a barrel for many years, we simply failed to save for the rainy day, with the result that a country with a population of over 170 million today has just $26 billion in foreign reserves.

“To compound this, the fall in the price of crude oil is having a ripple effect: the scarcity of forex, which has resulted from the oil price crash, means that industries are struggling to get forex to import raw materials and machinery.”